The Ghost War
by BadgerLeopard
Summary: Waltem Abbot, 1997. Bodies are appearing everywhere and strange balls of sentient mist are resurrecting the dead. Can the Doctor prevent a deadly war?
1. Part One

**The Ghost War**

**Part One**

**Featuring the Seventh Doctor**

_Cornwall, 1997._

Professor Richard Harcroft examined the strange corpse that he had found outside his laboratory and concluded that it had been stabbed to death with some sort of ceremonial dagger.  
Harcroft was an elderly man but still remained at his workplace, as he felt that he was committed to finding out why people had died. It was strange though: bodies had been turning up all over the town recently and nobody seemed to know why. It was as if there was a killer among the residents of Woltem Abbott.  
"Now who could have killed you?" he muttered to himself, examining the incisions on the body. He deduced that the killer must have stabbed the victim three times in the back and two times in the stomach. He also figured that the killer was right-handed.  
However, just as he was writing up what he had found so far, an eerie green mist drifted in through the open window. The mass of green fog floated around the room before entering the dead body through the nostrils, flowing directly into the brain. The wounds healed themselves instantly and the victim stood up, his eyes slightly greener than before.  
"What the devil?!" Harcroft exclaimed in astonishment, edging towards the telephone on his desk as the previously dead victim examined himself, marvelling at all of  
the features that he had.  
"I like this new form." the victim said, before noticing Harcroft's labcoat and beige shirt and saying, "But you have clothes. What a weird culture you humans have. I think I'll have your clothes."

Mitch and Jemma Agnew were sat by the seafront on a wooden bench, sharing a bag of chips. They'd recently been to the graveyard to lay some flowers for their dead mother and now they were enjoying a pleasant summer's afternoon by the seaside. The Sun was shining high and they had no worries.  
"Jem, have you noticed how the sunlight makes the rock shimmer and sparkle?" Mitch asked her, a keen geologist and scientific geek.  
"No Mitch, I haven't. I like it here, you know. The atmosphere's divine and everyone's just so nice. We should stay."  
"Jem, you know what I'm going to reply to this don't you? That job in London has everything we need to have a good life. I don't want to spend the rest of my life here, where we grew up: I want to be out there, doing things and seeing wonders. I want to enjoy my life, not be here."  
Jemma hugged him, understanding what he meant. The job he'd seen in London looked so good: how could he not resist? But that would also mean moving house and leaving the serenity of Woltem Abbott behind. Inside, she felt that she didn't want to leave Woltem Abbott. Ever.  
Thankfully something was about to change her mind.

The victim, wearing Professor Harcroft's clothes, was now walking Waltem Abbot's high street with a relaxed look on his face. He was getting used to his new form and rather liked the appearance of the body he had found: the word that humans used was 'pretty'. Because that was the important thing: he was actually a green mist entity from the Kujishima System, fleeing from a devastating war that had gone on there, which was occupying a corpse in twentieth century Cornwall. So if he didn't understand human culture, he wasn't to blame.  
"Oi mate, what's the coat for?!" yelled a passing teenager, clearly amused by the victim's clothes.  
This got the victim's attention. He turned and walked up to the teenager with a smile on his face.  
"If you must know I only got this body a few hours ago and these were the only clothes available. Satisfied?" he rapidly asked, not knowing how he'd managed to  
manipulate his vehicle's vocal chords that well.  
"Alright mate. You just look like a weirdo. Like one of them science geezers."  
This aggravated the victim. So, to punish the young teenager, he raised his hand up to his face and absorbed his identity. The victim's identity became the teenager's and so, from that moment onwards, the victim was officially called Harold Biggs, whilst a frightened teenager ran off back home.

Elsewhere, down a nearby alleyway, something unexpected happened. A harsh gust of wind blew and the thing causing it was the materialisation of a tall blue police box. It wheezed and howled itself into existence, almost as if the sentient time machine was exhausted in some way. As soon as the police box had fully solidfied, the door opened and the craft's only passenger emerged: he was a short man, carrying a red umbrella and dressed in a brown jacket, red waistcoat, white shirt, black tie and pyjama trousers. He had a cream coloured hat on his head and his hair was somewhat curly and black yet became greyer the further you went away from the centre of his head.  
"Yes, this'll do perfectly." he said to himself, closing the door and walking off, towards the high street.

Harold Biggs then bumped into the pilot of the strange craft just as the pilot emerged from the alleyway onto the high street. Naturally Harold knew who the pilot was by reputation: it was the Doctor, the saviour of planets and the hero of generations. Except today the Doctor looked a bit grumpy. Some would even say depressed.  
"Doctor?" Harold asked him, "It is 'the Doctor', isn't it?"  
"Yes. What do you want?" came his reply. The Doctor's voice was scottish and somewhat raspy yet enigmatic.  
"There's something I need to tell you. Something you need to know."  
"Really? Where do you want to talk?"

They eventually decided to chat in a lovely little cafe called _Home 4 Tea_, where the Doctor ordered a hot cup of tea whilst Harold decided to have a coffee. Which was a bad idea.  
"What did you want to tell me then?" the Doctor asked, then adding, "I've got a lot of work to do."  
"I'm not human."  
"I beg your pardon?"  
"I'm not human. I'm a Teraflit entity from the Kujishima System and I've come to Earth to escape."  
The Doctor seemed interested.  
"Escape from what?"  
"A war. There's a war between two almighty warrior races and my home system is caught in the heart of it. But that war has begun another war."  
"Between your people and whom exactly?"  
"The Deforans."  
"Another entity race." the Doctor remarked, "I should have guessed."  
"Precisely. When I last checked, a Deforan decided to follow me to Earth and I think they're going to want to find me and kill me."  
"Well what are doing standing here? We need to keep our eyes open for an entity!"

And at that precise moment, when a body had been found on the nearby beach, a red mist emerged from the heavens. It looked around, noticing the police officers, and then dived straight into the corpse, through the nostrils and entering the brain.  
The corpse stood up, its wounds healing, and looked around him.  
"Excuse me officer," the corpse said, raising its hand up to a police officer's face, "I just need to borrow your identity for a moment."  
The police officer screamed in agony, as he became nobody.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**


	2. Part Two

**The Ghost War**

**Part Two**

**Featuring the Seventh Doctor**

_Cornwall, 1997._

Sergeant Jason Wallace looked a bit different than what he looked like five minutes ago. Mainly because the individual known as Sergeant Jason Wallace was occupied by a sentient mist which had absorbed Sergeant Jason Wallace's identity.  
Sergeant Jason Wallace no longer wore a police uniform and looked about five years younger than his actual age but apart from that, nobody would have noticed the change in appearance.  
Heading towards him, however, were a bunch of police officers who instantly recognised him as Jason Wallace yet felt there was something different about him.  
"Excuse me mate!" called one of the police officers, "What's your name?"  
"Jason Wallace. Is there something wrong?" Jason replied.  
"You just look a little different from the _actual _Jason Wallace." one of the officers explained, "So why exactly do you think you can get away with impersonating a police officer?"  
"Your mind looks intriguing. I think I might like to have it."  
"I'm sorry, sir?"  
"I think I'll have your mind."  
Jason placed his fingers on the temples of the police officer, closed his eyes and the sentient mist inside him drifted into the police officer's body. The corpse that now had the identity of Jason Wallace then dropped dead and the possessed police officer looked around in amazement.  
"I've just discovered something," the police officer said, looking at his new body, "I can take over multiple hosts."  
The other officers looked at each other in confusion a few seconds before several smaller bursts of red mist emerged from the possessed body and possessed them all, as well as Jason Wallace's corpse. Once the sentient mist had recovered, the various hosts that the mist had possessed looked at one another and smiled.  
"The war shall begin soon." Jason said, before the one-mind army walked off.

The Doctor and Harold, meanwhile, were prowling round Waltem Abbot, with the Doctor holding a small black box with an antenna which bleeped often. They had been to the TARDIS to allow the Doctor to get a sentient mist detector (it had a much more complicated name but 'sentient mist detector' is what Harold called it) and then they had begun their search for the rival sentient mist.  
In truth, the Doctor enjoyed the company of a corpse occupied by a sentient mist refugee from a far off system because he felt that they were the same in some way: they were both lonely aliens trying to get away from the same thing. For the Doctor, it was his future and the war that would tear the universe apart. He knew that he shouldn't be getting involved in it but he remembered how fallout from that war had managed to get into his past lives. For Harold, it was a war that had taken his family. His friends. His wife.  
"I'm getting something." the Doctor suddenly said, pointing in the direction of a squad of police officers and another individual who were advancing towards them, "Each of those individuals is giving off a very specific energy trace."  
"It seems then that they are all one mind." Harold concluded, "One single entity simultaneously existing in multiple bodies."  
"Correct." said the leader.  
"I can control each one of these hosts at the same time." said one of the police officers.  
"So, do you want to surrender now or do you want to die?" the leader then asked Harold, before adding, "And I see you have found the Doctor."  
"I'm warning you, whoever you are, leave this planet or else you will suffer." the Doctor said, his determination clearly present, "People have tried to take this world before and they have failed. Your war will not happen here."  
"Doctor, there's one thing you don't understand. I can separate my mind into multiple bodies. If I manage to continually split my mind into even, identical amounts, then I can do this!"  
The leader took out a jam jar which contained a blood red mist, unscrewed the lid and let the mist rise into the air.  
"You know what to do." Jason simply said, immediately before the mist flew off.

Mitch and Jemma had returned to their mother's graveyard to lay flowers there when they spotted something strange in the sky: an eerie red mist was flying over the graveyard, expanding a bit and then splitting off before flying towards the ground, into the soil and into the brain of the dead bodies buried in the graveyard.  
A part of the red mist had entered their mother's grave and soon, the two siblings heard a knocking, under the ground. They stepped back and ran off, as a hand rose up from their mother's grave.

The Doctor and Harold had made their way to the graveyard only to find Mitch and Jemma running out of it, with petrified looks on their faces.  
"What's going on?" the Doctor asked rapidly, then saying, "Doesn't matter, tell us on the way."  
Inside the graveyard, the corpses were advancing towards the Doctor, Mitch, Jemma and Harold, with evil grins on their faces. The leader of the corpses had also arrived, flanked by police officers.  
"Doctor, if you think you can stop the war, then you are very wrong. I shall summon the others. I shall bring the Tumishina here, to Earth, and this shall be our new homeworld!" the leader cried, as the corpses became ever closer.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**


	3. Part Three

**The Ghost War**

**Part Three**

**Featuring the Seventh Doctor**

_Cornwall, 1997._

Inside the graveyard, the corpses were advancing towards the Doctor, Mitch, Jemma and Harold, with evil grins on their faces. The leader of the corpses had also arrived, flanked by police officers.  
"Doctor, if you think you can stop the war, then you are very wrong. I shall summon the others. I shall bring the Tumishina here, to Earth, and this shall be our new homeworld!" the leader cried, as the corpses became ever closer.

Suddenly, a dozen balls of green mist descended from the heavens and surrounded the walking corpses. Two balls of the green mist went into Mitch and Jemma's minds, through the nostrils and into the brain.  
"Thamjik," the possessed Mitch said to Harold, "we heard your psychic call and we have come to help."  
"Thank you, whoever you are. But here I am called Harold." Harold replied.  
"You are not Harold to us." the possessed Jemma commented.  
"Gentlemen, please. I have an idea on how to settle this." the Doctor suggested, "I want all of you to enter my mind."  
"Certainly." the leader of the red mist answered, before all of the red mist and green mist left each body and entered the Doctor's mind. Mitch and Jemma woke up  
and looked around in surprise whilst all of the corpses dropped dead.  
The Doctor then collapsed.

_Inside the Doctor's mind, the Doctor was walking in a pretty green valley. Birds were tweeting in the sky and a small stream was flowing alongside him.  
__"Hello Doctor," came a familiar voice, "we chose this form as it represented an old enemy of yours. Is this true?"  
__The red mist had taken the form of the Master. More specifically, the incarnation of the Master who looked like Consul Tremas of Traken, the father of one of the Doctor's companions Nyssa of Traken.  
__The green mist, on the other hand, had taken the form of Susan, his granddaughter.  
__"So, the two warring sentient races have come together to discuss terms." the Doctor declared, "Shall we have tea?"  
__And suddenly, they were all sat at a table, teacups in front of them and a pot of tea in the centre of the table.  
__"Doctor, you cannot win. We will take this world. We have form and now you have allowed us access to your memories." the Master stated, sipping his tea.  
__"And that is where you have made your mistake. I still have control of this environment. So you will agree terms with your opponent or I will reign hell upon you.  
Literally." the Doctor answered, just as a Dalek emerged from nowhere._

The Doctor woke up a few moments later, firing a large volume of green mist from his nostrils which flowed into Harold's body. The red mist soon followed, flowing into Jason's body.  
"What did you do?" Mitch wondered, looking at how Jason and Harold were shaking hands.  
"I made them come to an agreement. The two races could live together in peace as long as they didn't harm humanity. They could possess the dead but not possess the living." the Doctor explained, just as Harold and Jason walked off, hand in hand.

Half an hour later, the Doctor, Harold, Jason, Mitch and Jemma were stood outside the TARDIS, in the alleyway where he had parked it earlier.  
"Thank you Doctor." Harold said, "You've made a difference today and we are very grateful."  
"Just make sure that nothing happens. That's what matters." the Doctor replied simply, entering the TARDIS and shutting the door. The TARDIS then dematerialised  
afterwards, taking the Doctor off to a new destination.

**THE END**


End file.
